Category: The Stick Chair Journal

For the last year I’ve been building chairs using slabs of bog oak that are 2,000 years old (according to a carbon dating test) and was harvested in Poland.

Furniture maker Andy Brownell is responsible for starting me down this path. He offered me some scraps of bog oak from one of his commission pieces. After experimenting with it and building a chair using the scraps, I was sold.

Together we bought a large chunk of a bog oak tree. It was the most I have ever spent on a single load of wood. However, don’t be freaked by that statement. Because I work almost entirely with common domestic woods that aren’t highly figured, my lumber bill has always been minimal.

This entry is about my experiences with the wood – good and bad. I’ve worked before with some older bog oak from Denmark, so I have a little perspective. But I am not an expert. Trees, like people, are individuals and are weird.

Strength

My biggest concern with the bog oak was that it wasn’t strong enough to use for a chair. This is oak that has been in a peat bog for 2,000 years and is on its way to becoming petrified. After wallowing in an anaerobic environment filled with turtle poop, is it too weak?

The good news is that the tree we bought was fast-grown oak. Some of the annular rings are 3/8” apart. Fast-grown oak is typically stronger than slow-grown oak. Also, the grain was incredibly straight, except at the butt of the tree. I have never worked with wood that is this rod-straight.

I made some sample chair-sized parts – legs, stretchers, sticks and arms. Then I propped the test pieces up on 4×4 blocks and smacked them with our lump hammer. Hard. They all survived just fine. No cracking, though they dented a little more easily than modern European oak.

Because the parts passed the test, I made some chairs using the bog oak.

Working Properties

The bog oak feels a bit like plowing dirt at times, instead of slicing wood. The wood requires more effort to saw, chisel and shape than modern European oak (which I have a lot of experience with). I also feel like it is more difficult to get a finished surface, but it’s not because of tear-out. It’s because the stuff is dense and resists you. 

It smells quite a bit when you cut it with electric machines. And the smell it makes is: bottomland. Mud, dirt and cod poo. But it’s not awful. The worst-smelling wood I ever used was mahogany that had been sunk in the Amazon for 200 years. When you cut it, it smelled like rotten, burning fish that had been injected right into your nose.

The smell goes away quickly. And the finished pieces have zero smell (just like normal wood).

Color

Bog oak gets darker as it percolates in the bog. I’ve worked with 4,000-year-old stuff that is almost black. This 2,000-year-old stuff has lots of variation. The wood by the bark is nearly black. The majority of the heartwood is a chocolate brown. And some parts are tan or khaki. And you see that variation all in one board from one tree. 

So you have to think about color the entire time, even though the wood comes from the same damn tree. A stick from the bark part of the tree can look radically different from a stick 3″ away.

Downsides and Defects

Wood that has been under ground/water for a long time can have some faults. I find far more structural faults with bog oak than standard European oak. Some of these splits and cracks look like the result of the wood being dried. Other cracks look much older (something killed this tree and sent it into the bog).

When ripping up the stuff, you absolutely have to pay close attention to the end grain and look for splits. Most of the splits I have found are near the pith of the tree, but I have also found some out by the bark. 

I reject anything with a split for structural parts (basically all my chair parts). These pieces are fine for boxes or stuff that doesn’t support a human body, but shakes and chair parts don’t go together.

The other odd quality of the wood is that it’s not good for making wedges. I made many bog oak wedges to secure the legs and sticks of the chair. It was poor wedge material. When struck on its end grain, the bog oak was mushy and split easily. (Even though it was strong when struck 90° to the end grain – weird.)

The Upside

The stuff is beautiful, even with simple finishes. I use linseed oil and beeswax, and the range of color is extraordinary, from coal black to an olive green. Plus, after five or six chairs, I have found ways to use this color shift to my advantage in the design.

All in all, the stuff is worth working with. The prices I fetch for bog oak chairs make it worth the effort. However, I wouldn’t want to work with it exclusively. It is recalcitrant. And I am always happy to start saddling a chair in modern red oak or white oak after working the boggy stuff for a couple weeks.

Where to get it? There are vendors who specialize in the stuff. I don’t have experience buying from them, so do your research. Andy and I bought our bog oak from M. Bohlke, a long-time local supplier of amazing woods.

— Christopher Schwarz

After 20 years of studying vernacular chairs in Western cultures, I am happy to state – again and again – something that some people refuse to believe.

Chairs do not need stretchers to be strong or to last hundreds of years.

The furniture record is clear. Chairs without stretchers survive just fine. They survive for the same reasons that any chair makes it for a few hundred years. The wood selection and joinery are excellent.

You might say: People weighed less and were smaller back then. While not universally true, it doesn’t really matter because chairs without stretchers continue to be made and sat upon by well-fed Westerners today.

So why do some chairs have stretchers and some do not?

Chairs without stretchers are easier to build and easier to repair. If a leg becomes loose, re-glue it and drive in a new wedge to return the chair to sound.

Chairs with stretchers are more difficult to build and more difficult to repair. However, they can go longer between repairs. If a leg becomes loose, the stretchers will hold it in place for a good long while. You can use the chair just fine – until the stretchers come loose.

Stretchers are decorative – this is important for chairs that are sold in stores. It’s one more place to put a fancy turning or some wooden brooch below the seat. 

Chairs without stretchers look odd to people who aren’t used to seeing them, which might be why we get so many comments from people when we post a photo of a stretcher-less chair (“Sitting on that chair will kill someone” is a typical comment.) The first Welsh stick chair I built in 2003 doesn’t have stretchers, and it’s still going strong. (Meanwhile my sister-in-law has burned through three sets of store-bought chairs during that same time.)

I build both kinds of chairs, it depends on my mood, the effect I am going for and the wood on hand. If I have some dead-straight 2” oak chunks for legs, I see no reason to add stretchers, unless the customer insists. But if I have some 1-5/8” walnut for legs, you can bet I’m going to add stretchers to shore up the undercarriage – both structurally and visually.

Stick Chair Merit Badge Update

In other stick chair business, we are down to 70 merit badges. And when they are gone, this little promotion is over. What the Sam Hill am I talking about? Read this. Build a chair, follow the rules (please!) and get one of the last ones.

— Christopher Schwarz

The following short story was passed to me by a guy at the John C. Campbell Folk School, and it is well worth reading, especially if you are a vernacular chair nerd.

Published in the Christian Science Monitor in 1986 (the year I graduated high school), the short story “I’d Like to Make You a Chair” by Pippa Stuart begins with a couple’s home being burgled. It ends with a chair and complex thoughts about forgiveness. 

As I read this story, I tried to envision the chair the Scotsman was building. I concluded that it had to be a stick chair.

Read the story for yourself and make up your own mind.

— Christopher Schwarz

If you are looking for a travisher, here is another fantastic option: Allan Williams, a chairmaker and toolmaker who makes three kinds of travishers.

Recently I ordered two travishers from Allan, a standard one with a 4-1/2″-radius blade and a tighter-radius tool (3″) for fixing student mistakes and doing some work at the back edge of my seats.

Allan’s are based on the travishers made popular by Claire Minihan and Peter Galbert. Claire and Peter’s tool is the travisher I have used for more than a decade, and I have ridden it to Australia and back. I’m also fond of the travishers made (also on the Minihan/Galbert pattern) by Elia Bizzari and crew. All these travishers usually require quite a wait to get (though they are worth it.)

Now you have a third great option with Allan’s travishers. They are made to a very high standard. They arrive insanely sharp. And they work as well as any travisher I’ve ever used. 

If you make regular-head stick chairs, the 4-1/2″-radius tool is all you need. If you want to explore some tight or shallow curves, Allan offers tools for that.

My only slight complaint is that the blades in Allan’s travishers are secured with Allen-head screws (makes sense when you think of it). I prefer slotted screws because I always have a #8 screwdriver on the bench. I will swap those screws out during my next trip to the hardware store. No big deal.

Otherwise, I recommend Allan’s tools with no reservation. They are fantastic tools that will last the rest of your chairmaking life.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. I also recommend the travishers from James Mursell at Windsor Workshops, but those require a separate blog entry to explain fully….

This seven-stick comb-back chair is built from a 2,000-year-old oak tree that was preserved in a Polish bog and recently harvested. The wood, which is remarkable and difficult to photograph, varies from charcoal black to a beautiful olive to a warm chestnut brown.

This chair is one of my newer designs; it uses a four-piece arm (for stability) and a thin shoe, which streamlines the look by removing visual bulk from the arm. It also is one of the most comfortable chairs I make.

This chair is set up for general use. The back leans 12° off the seat, and the seat is tilted 3°, so the back leans 15° off the floor. The seat is 16-3/4″ above the floor, which is a good height for most sitters. Overall, the chair is 38-1/2″ tall and there is 19″ between the arms. 

Like all my chairs, the joints are assembled with hide glue and oak wedges, so the joints are strong but can be easily repaired by future generations. The bog oak is finished with a home-cooked linseed oil/wax finish that has no poisonous solvents. The finish offers low protection, but it is easy to reapply as needed (with no special skills or tools) by the owner.

Purchasing the Chair

This chair is being sold via silent auction. (I’m sorry but the chair cannot be shipped outside the U.S.) If you wish to buy the chair, send an email to lapdrawing@lostartpress.com before 3 p.m. (Eastern) on Tuesday, Jan. 17. In the email please use the subject line “Chair Sale” and include your:

• First name and last name
• U.S. shipping address
• Daytime phone number (this is for the trucking quote only)
• Your bid (don’t forget this…)

Shipping options: You are welcome to pick up the chair here in Covington, Ky., and also get a free yardstick and pencil. I am happy to deliver the chair personally for free within 100 miles of Cincinnati, Ohio. Or we can ship it to you via LTL. The cost varies (especially these days), but it is usually between $200 and $500.

One last note: I bought about half of this bog oak boule with a friend (hi, Andy!). I estimate I have enough wood for about five or six more bog oak stick chairs. So there will be more in the future. However, I cannot say exactly when. The wood is quite difficult to work, so I have to space these chairs out a bit to give myself a break.

However, I will say that the extra effort is worth it. I wish I could afford to keep one of these chairs for myself. The wood is stunning.

— Christopher Schwarz